SWANN, Thomas Burnett

(1928-1976)

   US poet, novelist and academic who taught English literature at Florida Atlantic University, turning to full-time writing in the early 1960s. As an academic he published works on the poet HD (Hilda Doolittle [1886-1961]) and others, including Wonder and Whimsy: The Fantastic World of Christina Rossetti (1960). Much of his fiction - beginning with "Winged Victory" for Fantastic Universe in 1958 - could be described as SCIENCEFANTASY, as it posits a sustained ALTERNATE-WORLD version of Earth's history; but its abiding tenor is of FANTASY. Briefly, the TBS version of history centres on the doomed encounter of the SUPERNATURAL CREATURES of legend - dryads, centaurs, panisci, minotaurs, et al. - with ascendant humanity, climaxing at the time when Rome and Christianity were extending their imperialisms across the doomed, childlike, prelapsarian world. Most of his tales - all set well before the alternate 20th century, which TBS clearly found impossible to imagine - fit into this history. In order of their internal chronology they are: The Minikins of Yam (1976), set around 2500BC; the Minotaur sequence, comprising Cry Silver Bells (1977), TheForest of Forever (1971) and The Day of the Minotaur (1966), set in Mycenaean Crete; the Mellonia sequence, comprising Queens Walk in the Dusk (1977), Green Phoenix (1972) and Lady of the Bees (1962 Science Fantasy as "Where is the Bird of Fire?"; exp 1976), set in burgeoning Rome; Wolfwinter (1972), The Weirwoods (1967) and The Gods Abide (1976), the 3 novels in which humanity's religious and political destruction of the old ways reaches a climax; and a final scattering of nostalgia-choked tales set in the Christian era, The Tournament of Thorns (fixup 1976), Will-o-the-Wisp (1976 UK), The Not-World (1975) and The Goat without Horns(1971). This litany of dying falls evoked a warm response from fantasy and sf readers, a response not dissimilar to that evoked by the ecological sf that began to appear around the same time (ECOLOGY). TBS's early works are generally stronger than the late books, where a finger-pointing sentimentality tends to vitiate all but the most fleeting moments of loss.

   JC

   Other works: The Dolphin and the Deep (coll 1968); Moondust (1968); Where is the Bird of Fire? (coll 1970); How are the Mighty Fallen (1974).

   About the author: Thomas Burnett Swann: A Brief Critical Biography and Annotated Bibliography (1979 chap) by Robert A. Collins.

   See also: GODS AND DEMONS; MYTHOLOGY.